The accolades continue to pour in for football player turned activist Colin Kaepernick.
After having been handed both the Amnesty International Ambassador of Conscience Award and the National Education Association Human and Civil Rights Award earlier this year, Harvard University will now recognize the civil rights icon.
According to CBS Boston, the Super Bowl quarterback will receive the school’s W.E.B. Du Bois Medal. It’s considered “Harvard’s highest honor in the field of African and African American studies.” Kaepernick will be presented the medal at the Hutchins Center in Cambridge on Oct. 11.
The 2018 Hutchins Center Honors
Ceremony: 10/11 at 4pm @Harvard. Free tickets available to Harvard ID holders via lottery – https://t.co/XOow5ohlbY
A limited number of free tickets will be made available to the public on 10/9 via the Harvard Box Office – https://t.co/UUHYwkItzo pic.twitter.com/JT2XIAhheE
— Hutchins Center (@HutchinsCenter) September 20, 2018
The medal is named after a sociologist in Du Bois, who challenged social and racial norms during a time of racial proliferation in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Du Bois himself was a graduate of Harvard.
The debate regarding Kaepernick’s social stances and National Anthem protests changed earlier this month when he was signed on by Nike to be the company’s head pitchman for its 30th anniversary of the Just Do It campaign.
This latest achievement will be more fodder for those who support Kaepernick and his activism. It will also lead to more criticism from the “stand for the anthem” crowd, potentially calling for a boycott of the Cambridge-based university.